If my 10 years broadcasting on air in the radio industry taught me anything, it was that as social creatures, human beings need to communicate. The lessons learned in radio transfer almost seamlessly to on-line Social Media - Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
To be social you need to communicate.
To communicate you need to listen to the other people.
To communicate effectively you have to be authentic & engaging.
To be authentic - you need to be yourself.
And to be engaging you should ‘include’ your audience – not exclude it.
... oh, and a little humour can help. A lot.
So really, social media is a conversation. Although - you’re typing/broadcasting your side of the conversation online.
9 Things you are doing wrong with Social Media1 -
"To all you twitter people out there..." Keep the conversation One-to-One. Always speak in the “first person”. People are normally reading tweets by themselves and conversely you are not presenting to a room full of people huddled around a computer monitor!
2 -
"The Blog Trilogy" Keep it short – word economy. On Twitter you have only 140 characters; you don’t need to use them all! If you need more space write a log post ... not a novel.
3 -
"One time - in Band Camp ..." Keep things interesting & keep your followers attention. There’s a reason they followed you – keep it coming. You have your audience – they want more!
4 -
"No reply required" Keep answering the phones – well, on-line that converts to replying to tweets/direct messages. Also, be sure to thank Blog responses - even if you don't agree with their comments, this is a conversation after-all.
5 -
"That's all I got" Keep giving stuff away – online, this can be information (article links), or even links to free pdf/mp3 downloads, etc.
6 -
"You don't wanna know" Actually, we do. Keep it human – human nature is universal, if you are impressed/offended by something, chances are so is someone else.
7 -
"Oops I messed up. I gotta go now" Keep on going. If you make a mistake or screw-up, just keep on going. It’s natural to make mistakes & your followers will recognize/forgive this.
8 -
"My opinion on Irish politics ..." Keep it local – doesn’t always apply on-line, but if you can type with passion about a local event, that will certainly ad value to your social media impact.
9 -
"OK, disregard that last post!" Keep being you. Don’t go changing - while your trending topics may change, unless you have a life changing experience, it doesn't make sense to pull a complete 180 on your own opinions.
Labels: #podcamphfx, Facebook, list, Social Media, Twitter